


Mermaid's Tear

by AlterImpulse



Category: Xenogears
Genre: 31/20, Adult Age Gap, Age Difference, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief Alcohol Mention, Colors, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Implications of past war crimes, Introspection, Jewelry, Love, M/M, OTP Feels, Outer Space, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reference to dissociative identity disorder, References to Canon, References to spousal loss, Reflection, Remarriage, Romance, Short One Shot, Symbolism, implications that Citan is on the autism spectrum, reference to past canon slavery, references to canon war, sfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 16:43:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18996526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterImpulse/pseuds/AlterImpulse
Summary: Citan reflects on symbolic jewelry and love, as he and Fei take Xenogears into space together.





	Mermaid's Tear

**Author's Note:**

> Elly is not in this story. Assume whatever you like as to why she isn't, and where canon diverged to bring Citan and Fei back together.

Citan had always liked the color green most of all colors - it was something he could not explain, even if he thought about it in depth - there was just something so entrancing, so stunningly beautiful about shades of green. Whether it was the shade of a perfectly made cup of green tea, or the milky soft glow of absinthe, the almost ethereal look of the Water Element gem that he had been given by the Emperor himself that looked as if he were staring into a still green pond, the deep black green blend of his own eyes, the nanomolecular paint of Fenrir that shimmered if the light caught it just right, there seemed to be a beauty in it that drew him in, that symbolized something important to him even if he did not know  _ what _ it was. Once he could choose his own clothes, and not simply wear Solarian military issue, he would also incorporate something green, somewhere.

Even his own daughter’s name, Midori - although he blamed  _ that _ on Yui’s insistence that he just  _ pick a name for his child already _ because she needed one, and there had been no time to contemplate the best one, so he had just mumbled 'Midori,' and so had his daughter been named after his favorite color.

The most beautiful green yet, though, had to be this stone that now hung on the necklace he wore, that replaced the Water Element magatama of Solaris. A “mermaid’s tear,” which he knew on a logical basis was not one - after all, mermaids did not exist out of all the demihuman species on the planet. From his examinations of it, and his knowledge, he knew that these were simply rare gems, green opal from the depths of the Sargasso Point, with moving water locked inside the prismatic green stone.

Yet the meaning of it was even beyond the stunning green, and that was what truly made the gem he had once worn, crafted by the most trusted jeweler to the Gazel, pale in comparison to it. That gem had signified obligation, obedience, servitude - that he was always the  _ slave _ he had been born, even if to the Emperor directly as First Class and an Element rather than a Third Class…

This one signified love, freedom, trust. Not only in the sense that mermaid’s tears as gifts from those who had to travel to those they left behind as promises of return did… but with who it was from, from that day that Fei had held it out to him, and asked if he wanted it, wanted to wear it as  _ theirs _ .

That first time he had suppressed his ingrained military instincts to  _ attack _ someone behind him with a kick or a quick backward jab of a sword to let Fei hold him in an embrace, to allow him to take off the repurposed steel chain that held the Water Element gem, and clasp the gold chain that bore the mermaid’s tear in its place, and asked him how he thought it looked…

It looked  _ perfect _ .

To look down at it reminded him of how much he was loved, even with his having committed wrongs so grievous there were no ways to ever fully “make it right,” his own complicity in the decimation of a planet and all humanoid life on it. That somehow, he was worth not only being allowed to live and serve, but to be _loved_ , to be accepted, by the people contained in these two forms he had once been assigned to observe. That it was finally all right for _him_ to love, once again, that Yui would be at peace with his being with Fei.

“We were right,” Kim said through Fei's body, his voice awed as he stared at the display before them, and with that, the silence that had allowed him to be lost in his own thoughts without, for once, talking about them, had broken. “Inhabited highly advanced planet.”

“We need to speak to them before we initiate landing. Xenogears here, after all, is primarily a weapon. We simply repurposed it for the journey.” Citan looked down at the mermaid’s tear one more time, as he tried to find the communication channel, any way to tell the planet below that this was not an act of war, but seeking help for a home that had seen far too much war.

 

_ For once, the bearer of the mermaid's tear and the giver of it have gone together. Into the unknown and the future, such as it is, for us. _


End file.
